Chapter Twenty: “Loot! Good Loot! Best Loot!”

  In my backyard rift, we’d found the core in the office of the gas station. It was floating in the footwell of the desk, about a foot and a half off the ground. This one was floating at about the same height, so they had that in common, but otherwise, they looked nothing alike.

  Instead of a smooth silver ball, it was an oozy, iridescent purplish glob of… something. Maybe the epoxy resin that the swamp goo turned into? It looked toxic. Not quite poisonous, not deadly, but like you’d never get the smell off your fingertips, no matter how hard you scrubbed.

  Beneath it and off to one side, resting on the ground, sat something that looked like an old-style tin pie plate filled with a white substance.

  It didn’t look toxic.

  In fact, it looked an awful lot like a pan of pure Reddi-Wip. Or, you know, the canned whipped topping of your choice; I was no expert on sprayed whipped cream varieties.

  “What the fuck is that?” I said.

  So good, so good, so good, Zelda told me, her tail buzzing so fast it was like a hummingbird’s wings. That had to be a side effect of her increased stats. Even when she was a puppy, she hadn’t moved like that.

  Riley took a dignified step, sat back on his haunches, and turned his gaze away from us.

  I am a good boy, his posture told me. I will leave it. I am a good boy.

  His long tongue, though, swooped out of his mouth, reaching a dab of white on his nose. My animal communication skill let me know that the gesture was a mutter of resistance, a whisper that hinted unfair, unfair.

  Bear scrabbled her way around the tin pie plate at their feet, lapping, lapping, lapping some more. Finally she lifted her head, snout completely white, and said, Loot! Good loot! Best loot!

  I tapped [Analyze] and stared at the pie plate.

  Item: Prodigious Pup Cup Pie

  Type: Regenerative Consumable

  Quality: Uncommon

  Condition: Used

  Description: A plate of creamy delicious dairy topping, lightly sweetened, containing an entire can’s worth of happiness. Regenerates slowly in mana-dense environments.

  Effect: Grants a minor temporary boost to a random attribute when consumed.

  “The entire can?” I squeaked. “Whose idea was this?”

  Best loot, best, best, best, Bear’s tail wagged happily.

  Please? Zelda looked up at me, her own tail still buzzing.

  Riley glanced over and I could see the yearning in his eyes.

  I sighed. “Fine, all of you.” I made the release hand gesture, indicating the plate. “Go for it. But everyone’s getting their teeth brushed tonight. That means you, too, Bear. And yes, Riley, you were a Very Good Boy. Good job.”

  As the dogs dived in, JJ said, “Is that whipped cream? Is that—”

  “The incredibly valuable loot that’s gonna change your life?”

  “You kidding?” He shot me a skeptical look.

  “Totally. Yeah, it’s whipped cream. It’s a Prodigious Pup Cup Pie, in fact, which is the kind of thing that makes me think someone out there is mocking me.”

  “You think it’s that personal?”

  “Eh, not really.” It was just magic at work, doing magical shit.

  Magic.

  We lived in a world of magic now. I hadn’t really stopped to think about that, apart from being grateful for healing potions and an elderly dog acting like a puppy. There hadn’t been a lot of time for reflection, what with the apocalypse and all. But still, it was kind of amazing.

  Okay, except for all the people who were going to die. Definite drawback there.

  Moving my gaze up, I tapped [Analyze] while looking at the blob of goo.

  Item: Rift Core #N5W12S#486

  Type: Mana Construct - Rift Anchor

  Tier: One

  Description: A condensed mana structure sustaining an interstitial environment. Residual mana patterns indicate unrecovered resources.

  I glanced around the debris field. Were those resources all the stuff that I hadn’t picked up along the way? Loot from the slime monsters and whatever other creatures I’d slaughtered without seeing? Or did it mean that there were still final treasures from the rift clear to collect?

  “If you touch the core, you might get some loot of your own,” I suggested to JJ. “We cleared the instance while you were in here. The core ought to reward you. Although it might be based on contributions, I guess.”

  “I didn’t do a dang thing,” JJ said, sounding rueful. But he reached out and touched the core, then turned his palm upright, startled, as a toy whistle appeared in it. Not the safety kind, but a slide whistle, like the ones kindergarteners learning about music might play with.

  I used [Analyze] automatically, then pressed my lips together to stop my laugh from escaping.

  Item: Slide Whistle

  Type: Musical instrument

  Quality: Common

  Condition: Pristine

  Description: A simple wind instrument capable of producing a wide range of tonal signals.

  Effect: Sound carries farther than expected in mana-dense environments. Nearby beings are more likely to notice and respond to its use.

  JJ rubbed his chin. “Tough to see this saving my life. Although I guess maybe I could use it to call for help?” He put it in his mouth and played, producing a seemingly effortless glissando that was dramatically louder than such a small instrument should have been able to create.

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  Bear lifted her head from the depleted pie tin and woofed in disapproval.

  “Ha,” JJ barked with laughter as he lowered the whistle. “I guess it might have at that.” He tucked the whistle into his pocket. “We ready now?”

  “I need to touch it, too.” I nodded toward the core. JJ stepped back, giving me room.

  I didn’t really want to. Not just because it looked squishy and gross, but because I didn’t know what would happen. The first rift core I’d touched had been overwhelming, an instant migraine with bonus sledgehammer bashing around inside my skull. The second, the one in my backyard, had been nothing special.

  Gingerly, I extended a single finger and touched the core. Information flowed into my mind, smoothly and effortlessly. Instead of a deluge of data, it was a gentle trickle. With an internal sigh of relief, I began assessing what I now knew.

  The first item to become clear was a mental map. The rift core in my backyard had given me a map, too, but I hadn’t paid much attention to it. That rift was basically a straight line with a road running down the middle. A two-year-old couldn’t get lost.

  This map was more useful. It revealed to me that the rift was roughly circular with breaches on more or less opposite sides. Designated areas held encounters; the swamp where JJ had been stuck was an intentional trap; and the area where we were standing was the Rift Control Chamber.

  Yep, mental capital letters and all.

  It didn’t exactly fit my idea of a “chamber,” because it wasn’t enclosed. It didn’t have walls, a roof, a floor, or any evidence of construction. Of course, I had no idea what might have been here before my [Wild Sanctuary] smeared the boss monster and everything around it into paste, so maybe there had been a structure initially. Or maybe the location of the rift core was always called the Rift Control Chamber, regardless of what it looked like?

  I felt like I should know the answer to that question, but I didn’t. It would be really nice if the System came with some clearer Help files. Maybe a wiki? If people had internet for much longer, I hoped we’d create one. I should probably contribute, but that was definitely a thought for later. Maybe much later.

  I moved on. My mind now seemed to hold a bunch of environmental information, most of which went straight over my head. It was a dense tangle of jargon that assumed a level of expertise I definitely did not have. It reminded me of sitting in exam rooms with my dad while his doctor talked about his scans and results, the words all ten syllables long until he finally got to the one that mattered: inoperable.

  This was like that, except the conclusion was much nicer: safe. Safe for me, safe for my pack. Whatever caused the smell in the air wasn’t slowly poisoning us, and despite the general aura of toxic waste, the rift wasn’t dangerous. Well, it wasn’t environmentally dangerous.

  Any danger came from the denizens: slimes, swamp creatures, snakes, and a pack of mutant gators. Also a single example of something called a Gargantuan Slime, which did not sound like a creature I wanted to run into on a dark night. I looked around me at the ground, darker here than most of the terrain we’d crossed. That was probably evidence of the Gargantuan Slime going splat. Lovely.

  Being Level 17 in a Tier One rift meant I wasn’t worried about any of them now, but I couldn’t imagine running into a pack of mutant gators if they outleveled me. I’d always been a little paranoid about regular old gators, and I didn’t expect their mutations would make them any friendlier.

  “We should look for your mom,” I muttered, still staring into space as I tried to process all my new knowledge.

  “Yes! You ready to go?” JJ sounded more than eager.

  “Almost.”

  I wanted to know about the people on the other side of the breach, the purple methheads. It sounded as if JJ had defeated them easily enough, but if they were inherently hostile and had advanced weaponry, we might not want them as near neighbors. I could close this rift and hope that the one that opened in its place led to a friendlier species. Or to an uninhabited world like the one on the other side of my home rift, with no sign of civilization, just bugs and more bugs.

  But the knowledge I was gaining from the core wasn’t System knowledge. It didn’t appear in my HUD, like an interaction with the System would have. Instead it was just… knowledge. Stuff that I knew now that I hadn’t known before touching the core.

  I could tell some of that knowledge belonged to me now. Like the map. After today, I might not enter this rift again for twenty years or more. Yet when I did, I’d be able to pull up the map as if the memory in my brain was a file on a computer’s hard drive: it would look exactly as it did today, perfect and clear.

  Some of the knowledge, though, wasn’t really mine yet. Trying to understand it felt like trying to remember a dream. Confusing, inchoate. Fuzzy.

  Information about the second breach was the epitome of fuzzy. I could feel that it was out there, just beyond my reach. But trying to access it just didn’t work. Even focusing as intently as possible on the idea of the breach leading to an alien planet was useless. I felt like I was one of those television psychics, able to say that the planet’s name might start with a D or maybe an E. Beyond that, nothing.

  “All right, I guess—” I started, already thinking about the path to the breach and how long it would take to get there.

  I felt an almost physical click and the rift core changed. Not visually, it still looked like a floating glob of goop, but now it held an interface, almost like the System’s.

  Would you like to exit the rift? Choose your destination:

  1) Rift Management Interface

  2) Earth Gate

  3) Dendrys Gate

  I’m sure I looked like an idiot, staring at nothing with an expression of wonder on my face, but I didn’t care. The rift core in my home rift had never done anything like this. Were my rift keeper abilities getting better or had I just never held onto the core for long enough? And could anyone see this or was it just me?

  I dropped my hand and the message faded away. Nodding toward the core, I said to JJ, “Hey, touch that for another minute and see if you get a message about exiting, okay?”

  “Uh, yeah, okay.” He nodded in turn, toward an item on the ground. “That’s yours, I think.” Then he put his hand back on the goo ball.

  I bent and picked up the object.

  It was a toothbrush.

  [Analyze] told me that it was, in fact, a Canine Toothbrush. No special features, no magic tricks, not even a special meat-flavored, built-in toothpaste that dogs would adore, just a basic brush to use on dogs’ teeth. Like I didn’t already have half a dozen varieties of the same thing at home.

  “Pfft.” I expressed my disgust as I dropped the brush into my pouch. It wasn’t even the kind of brush that I liked. I like the finger brushes with gentle bristles. Training the dogs not to bite a finger is a lot easier than convincing them not to crunch down on a plastic stick with a brush on the end.

  The dogs had finished their pup cup and were sitting, waiting, eyes alert.

  Bear nosed the pie tin. Carry, she demanded.

  I rolled my eyes, but grabbed it obediently. How exactly was the whipped cream going to regenerate? Was everything in the pouch going to get covered with it or would it magically stay contained? Or maybe it wouldn’t regenerate while it was inside the extra-dimensional space. If Bear knew that, she'd probably insist on carrying it around with her like a favorite toy. I repressed my smile at the mental image of Bear with a pie tin in her mouth, ruffled her ears, and stuck the tin in the pouch. I’d live with the mess if I had to.

  “I got nothing,” JJ said, letting go of the core.

  “And I got a toothbrush. For dogs.” I shook my head, then reached out and touched the core. This time the exit question popped up immediately.

  Decisions, decisions.

  Did I need to be touching all my companions to bring them with me? Now was probably a good time for a test. This instance of the rift was as safe as any rift would ever get, so if I left the dogs behind, they wouldn’t be in any danger and I could retrieve them pretty quickly.

  Second question, did I want to go to my RMI or the Earth Gate? My little coffee shop felt sort of personal. I wasn’t sure I wanted to bring JJ into it with me. But I did want to check the information panel, and we might need to go through it to enter an already formed instance rather than creating yet another new one. Plus, it wouldn’t be a bad idea to grab another healing potion. RMI, it was.

  “All right. I think—I hope—I’m going to teleport us all out of here,” I said. I patted my companion pouch, shifted my shoulders to check on my backpack straps, and took a deep breath. Then I touched the orb and chose option one, concentrating as hard as I could on sending the message that I wanted all of us to exit, not just me.

  The orb ignored my useless telepathic intent but opened up a new dialog box that asked who should be included on the exit, listing all five of us. It felt a little too convenient—or maybe I just felt a little stupid for not guessing it would ask—but I selected everyone.

  Reality warped. For an instant, I was in the abyss again. It still wasn’t staring back, but it was still thoroughly unpleasant, like existence was a piece of paper being crumpled into nothingness. Before I could even swallow, it was over. We were in the coffee shop.

  Chelsea, still standing behind the counter, greeted us cheerfully. “Welcome!”

  JJ muttered something under his breath. I’m pretty sure it was “holy shit.”

  Automatically, I counted dogs: Zelda, Riley, Bear, all safe. Then my gaze flew straight to the menu board, just as the menu flickered and changed. I couldn’t remember exactly what it had read before, but the line for the third instance disappeared. The line for the first instance was also gone.

  And the line for the second instance now said:

  Instance 2 Occupant: Alma Jessup - Human Warrior, Level 4.